Heart Repair

If you are new here or have stumbled across this page, welcome. You are probably unfamiliar with our story. At the end of June, our beautiful baby girl Shaundi was born and she was perfect and such a joy! In early September, my husband found her unresponsive and not breathing. Life with in our family with one of our babies gone has been hard. I’m sharing our journey here.

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Yesterday I had heart surgery. It was planned and it was to correct a heart defect that I’ve had my whole life. I was worried and scared but I wanted to get it done. We’ve thought a lot and talked a lot about death in our house these past few months and one of the most comforting parts of this surgery was that I was going to be put under.

For the first time in two and a half months my brain didn’t have unanswered questions dancing around disrupting every thought, every memory, every moment – waking and sleeping. For the first time I didn’t re-live horrible things over and over and over in my head. For the first time I didn’t feel anything. I just was. For four hours I wasn’t afraid, I wasn’t sad, I wasn’t happy, I wasn’t worried. I was nothing. That moment where you just let go was so wonderful. Now I wonder if that’s what death is like. You don’t exist and you just let go. You feel nothing.

Waking up was difficult. When I’ve had anesthesia before, I’ve been told I’m hilarious when I wake up. Think David After Dentist when he’s thirty something, yeah, I’m funnier. Not this time. I came unglued. I just cried and cried and moaned. I wasn’t in pain on the outside and for all intents and purposes, my heart was fixed…but it’s still broken. My tears were a mixture of relief that I was awake and well and disappointment that I was back to reality in this place.

Every single morning when I open my eyes I’m hit with the overwhelming weight of disappointment. I love my life, I love my kids, I love my husband but the disappointment that our loss is real is just so heavy. It packs such a powerful punch that I can literally feel my heart stop for a second. It smacks me in the stomach that this is real and I just struggle with the fact that we can’t change anything. I struggle with accepting the idea that nothing can be done. I’m really having a hard time with that reality. My brain knows but really, my heart just doesn’t. Every single day I tell my poor heart the truth and every day my heart argues and protests. Until my heart accepts this reality, life will continue to be so painful.

All this month I’ve been anxious for this procedure. And what’s the worst that could happen? I’ll die. And thinking about that makes me sad because of course I want to see my children grow up. I want to run around and play with my family and I don’t want them to have any more pain in their lives. But sometimes I don’t think that I can handle this. I sometimes think that the absence of this pain in my life would feel so good. And if for some reason God decided that this was it for me…maybe I would be okay with that.

Isn’t a broken heart just so heavy? Doesn’t it just bleed onto every piece of your life? If only there was a procedure that could patch up this injury or ablate it away.

About The Author

My name is Katy Mann, and I'm the creator of Indy with Kids. With over 10 years of experience working with children, and my excitement towards the great city of Indianapolis; I offer readers guidance about great events and activities to do around Indianapolis with their kids and grandchildren. Join us on our family travels and adventures across the country!